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A Feminist theology through experienced reflection.

Saturday, August 10, 2013

“And
one spoke with authority. Mt. 7:29”

For several weeks I
have been reflecting on the idea of authority and how that word impacts us. I
am always struck by the use of the word in Mark’s Gospel passage because I find
it offensive and counterintuitive as a term used for Jesus,yes,
especially when my favorite image of him is holding a lamb, a person of deep
compassion, of stalwart forgiveness and of an understanding of the cosmos about
how we are all interdependent, not lorded over by a hierarchical word such as
‘authority.’I cringe when I hear it, and
when I see it in print; my physical reaction mirrors my interior twisting and
turning as anxiety builds against the myriad meanings and interpretations of
this word and what it represents in its broadest oppressive, dominant context. Questions
arise as the physicality of it enters my brain and the sound permeates me, such
as, – ‘He spoke with authority’, or ‘Listen as I am the authority’, orI have
the authority to make that decision’.How
do we respond to those who presumably ‘have authority’? What does it mean to
‘have authority’ to those who have it and those who do not?What is our own sense of authority? DO we
have it or do we not?If not, how do we
get it?DO we want it, even? What does
it really mean to have it anyway? Is it given to us by others or do we grasp at
it for ourselves?

Often we have presuppositions
about concepts surrounding words that are taken in or out of context.We presume meanings that may not even have
relevance to the word itself, but these meanings have built a myth around the
word, often distorting significance as certain of these meanings are used in
ways that build a concrete wall around the word seemingly never to be
dismantled.New meanings are ‘not
allowed’ to be constructed. New meanings that might bring the words forward to renewal
or retrieval of the original true meaning, or graft innovative, transformative
or evolved meanings on them as society’s needs fluctuate progressing to ever
nuanced interpretations or hermeneutics over tried and true anciently rooted
meanings suffering from stagnation.

Authority is such a word.
Its etymology comes from the Latin word auctoritas.[i]
According to Cicero, it was the power of the Roman Senate to make decisions and
assert their voice over another’s arguments. Its meaning was fluid in a certain
respect and could not be pinned down definitively. It appears also that it was
a word that the Greeks had no equivalent for and in the end even the Roman
Senate found it to be an ineffectual solution. So the concept of auctoritas was either replaced or paired
with consilium[ii]

What are the meanings
of the word ‘authority’ today?There are
many and as fluid as they were back in Roman times. The dictionary states, of course, a variety of
meanings along with synonyms for a variety of situations. First, there are the
various contexts in which the word is used, such as:

·Power based on right

·Appearance of having power, knowledge or
ability

·Vested with ability or knowledge

·One who knows

Then under these subheadings are several synonyms
that apply to each:

ØRight,
authorization, righteousness, justification, power

ØPrestige,
influence, self-assurance, gravitas

ØOfficialdom,
judges, police, ecclesiastics, powers that be

ØScholar,
expert, critic, specialist, judge

From the defining words above, authority
denotes control, of a position of hierarchical influence of someone who
believes to have answers because of predetermined circumstances that they have
an ability, knowledge, or power that someone does not have, cannot have or that
excludes them from having. Sometimes
this is true and authentic; sometimes it is imagined or simply bestowed without
foundation, understanding or practical experience of what it means.

Authority presupposes possession
of knowledge, experience or a truth, but also a taking on of responsibility for
the concept which one represents to the other.Sometimes, however, authority is not connected to experience, as
expressed above, such that one comes not from a position of practical, and
right knowledge about a concept, but from a pure position of power that one can
self-name.One can sound authoritarian,
can appear to have the experience or be in possession of a truth claim because
they are capable of overriding the opinion of one who may have more practical
ability, but senses a certain inability to articulate, or explain or even be
allowed to explain that experience or alternative truth claim that is valid.

Is authority, as the
definitions state, what is given, bestowed or graced upon us by others?Often I see those who claim they have it, but
without any other entity having paved the way for them or handing it over to
another as seemingly a baton or a mantle of justification for making
pronouncements except for those elected into a particular office or position
that has a list of prerequisites that the electee seems to possess, but may not
yet possess the title.Here is where the
meaning distorts as depth of experience conflates with another’s ability to
misuse power or ambition to override a less astute, yet able ‘authority’ to
reign. I believe that this idea was realized by the Roman Senate and,
therefore, they knew that authority is a fleeting concept and that all that one
can hope to do is consilium –deliberation,
consultation, advice, suggestion, wisdom, plan, purpose, judgment.

Fr. Joe Pellegrino rightly
states, “All authority is by nature transitional except that authority which
comes from [God] and which has [as] its goal to return to him. Jesus held
people spellbound because God gave him the authority to teach the truth. This authority
would never be removed from Jesus because Jesus was intimately united to [God],
the source of the authority. We share in the authority of [God] to the extent
that we are united to the source of this authority.”[iii]Therefore, we are empowered by our deities,
our symbols, of who and what God is to us.We are empowered to be all that we can be in the truth and trust of that
authority bestowed because it has a divine source.We must not abuse it because it can be taken
away or it can fade away in ways of which we might not even be aware.

Authority is fleeting,
ultimately, and transitional.Today we
know and are experts, but new knowledge and learning comes after and then we
are left as before – without authority, or at best, a changed authority.I think that this is
what my mother meant when she told me that ‘rules were meant to be broken.’She knew that authority was not monolithic,
even that of God, can and does change and is handed to others, such as a change
in Popes or the empowerment of women who heretofore have not had authority, but
are now acquiring it, finding it, or retrieving it in new ways to explain the
truth of what God/Goddess, Christ/Christa mean to us.We have learned the lessons of how to ‘act
with authority’ and many are now listening to our ‘authority’.

Conclusion

“Women are sources of love, carriers of love and
sustainers of love.”[iv]

I ask us to think about
replacing this dire word, authority, with a different one that places a graced
way of envisioning Scripture, Christ/Christa and God/Goddess in a new light
that brings a creative view of how religion and faith work in our lives bringing
us closer to our divinity and our spirituality in a fairer, more tender and
more compassionate inclusivity.I invite
us to begin to replace authority with arbiter, a person empowered with issues
of judgment as an umpire would weigh alternatives and arrive at an answer.Arbiter presupposes experience in certain
matters, an ability to be equitable in judging and discerning on important
matters that involve righteousness and benefit for all. A mediator who gathers
information before passing judgment or exercising authority in its harsher
sense.

Authority, for me,
always has the ring of a power-over structure, a hier---yes, but in the sense
of ‘holier-than-thou’ --archical meaning that diminishes one’s own sense of
trust in their truth as they understand and see it in light of a healthy sense
of self that ‘gives permission’ to the other as having a valid answer with a
varying interpretation that resonates in one’s life with a more appropriate
meaning.For many, especially women and
those on the margins, authority, in many ways, can breed fear as one distrusts
their truth and attempts to replace it with the reigning authority. Properly
used authority is there for empowered arbitration and consilium, not disempowerment and diminishment of the other.

“Eldad and
Medad were not in the tent. They weren’t present with the 70 who received the
Spirit back in the days of Moses. Yet, Eldad and Medad still received the
Spirit. “Stop them,” Joshua said. “Why?” asked Moses. “Would that all the
people shared in the Spirit.”[v]

The only way to keep
authority or be an arbiter is to know how to give it away, to share the Spirit.When we do that we do it without ego and we
do it selflessly, our motives are pure and full of divine truth.

God/Goddess and
Christ/Christa, as arbiters, would not, I am sure, want us to ‘fear’ our
existence and experience, but find a way to trust our abilities and gifts in
order to discern what is just, righteous and beneficial to all in how we
express that to others and to ourselves. Let us speak as arbiters.

[i]http://www.novaroma.org/nr/Auctoritas“An essential concept of Roman political life
and not the same as English "authority", auctoritas referred to the
general level of prestige a person had in Roman society, and, as a consequence,
their clout, influence, and ability to rally support around one's will.
Auctoritas is the ability to make people do what you want, just by being who
you are. The auctoritas is more than advice and less than command, an advice
which one may not safely ignore.”

[ii] Balsdon, J.T.V.D., The Classical
Quarterly, New Series, Vol. 10, No. 1 (May, 1960), Cambridge University Press
on behalf of The Classical Association,http://www.jstor.org/stable/637589Auctoritas, Dignitas, Otium , 'Auctoritas' was naturally one of
Cicero's favourite concepts. In the ideal republic power lay with the people, auctoritas was with the Senate ('Cum potestas in populo, auctoritas in
senatu sit', De leg. 3. 28). Alternatively, in a balanced state, potestas would
lie with the magistrates, libertas with
the people, but still auctoritas
would be the property of the Senate, 'in
principum consilio' (De rep. 2. 57).This auctoritas which was the Senate's function in government, was, as
Mommsen said, 'an indefinite word, evading strict definition'. Instructions
went out to priests and others 'auctoritate
senatus' (Mommsen, Staatsr. iii. 2.3 I033, n. 2), and Livy frequently wrote
of laws whose initiation lay in a senatorial decree as introduced ‘ex auctoritate patrum'. By the end of
the Republic, however, an effective resolution of the Senate was a senatus consultum, while senatus auctoritais in the strict
technical sense-which, Dio tells us (55- 3- 5), could not be expressed in
Greek-was an ineffective resolution of the Senate. It reflected the will and
intention of a majority of the senators present and voting on a specific
resolution, and was indeed recorded as such in the Journal of the Senate, but
it was a resolution to which effect could not constitutionally be given, either
because one of the tribunes had vetoed it after it was passed (Adfam. I. 7. 4;
8. 8. 6-8) or because of some procedural irregularity. Apart from Dio's statement,
the only evidence for senatus auctoritais
in the sense of 'a resolution made ineffective through tribunician veto' is
supplied by Cicero's correspondence and is both late and sparse-a vetoed decree
on the restoration of Ptolemy Auletes in 56 (Adfam. I. 7. 4), the three
auctoritates reported by Caelius in October 51 (Adfam. 8. 8. 4 ff.), and a
letter of Cicero in the same year (Ad Att. 5. 2. 3)-' The Senate gave the
sanction of its auctoritate so the
decisions of the people, and was the consilium
of the magistrates, who were themselves 'in auctoritate
senatus'. ('Huius ordinis auctoritate
uti magistratus et quasi ministros gravissimi

consilii esse voluerunt (maiores
nostri)', Pro
Sest. 137.) But the Senate was no more than the sum of its members; so that the
exercise of auctoritas and consilium was the function of the
individual senator, in particular of the senior senators who spoke first and
whose opinions could be expected to sway the House. Anyone who spoke in the
Senate gave consilium A. senior
senator who spoke early in the debate spoke with auctoritas and, if things went properly, made the side on which he
spoke the winning side. ”,pp. 43-50,

[iv] Ibid., August 15, 2012 The
Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary: Mary, the Greatest of Us, “With the
exception of Jesus Christ, who is the Eternal Word, conceived through the power
of the Holy Spirit, Mary is the greatest person to ever exist. She is the
greatest person to be conceived through a human mother and a human father. She
is greater than Buddha, or Mohammed, or Moses, or David, or George Washington,
or Abraham Lincoln, any of the great people of history. She is the one who gave
her life so we can have a Savior. She is the greatest of us all. Women are
sources of love, carriers of love and sustainers of love.”

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Although I do not have any concrete thoughts about who may be the next pontifical leader, it stands to reason that more transparency is needed. I agree that from what I know and sense about it much more will be coming out about the scandals that needs purging. My hope is that status quo will be tossed out even if the most likely choice will be someone hyper-conservative. My hope also is that the Spirit will be fully active as she was during Vat II and surprise us all. Yes, asking for forgiveness and admitting that chidren have been abused by priests still needs to be clearly stated. Well, and another thing that needs transparency is for the Vatican to have a few gay cardinals 'come out' publicly. We know they are in there and most people would embrace that wholeheartedly--how would that be a super healing moment!! Talking about sexuality in an open manner would also be a huge shift and one that could be paradigmatic without knocking down any huge walls, but clear the way for dialogue on the other issues.Benedict is a brilliant theologian and I am sure he's been thinking about this resignation thing for a long time -- his 'school-buddy' Hans Kung (Vatican III: The Work that Still needs to be Done) has been calling for term limits for popes since 1974, so perhaps this is an act in that direction.The marginalized--absolutely need to have a voice and all the lashing out at those who love the church and have been 'abused' in other ways for standing up for righteousness and their consciences in prophetic disobedience must be reconciled!! I think the fact that you were on Tavis' show is prophetic and standing in another kind of solidarity.This is historic and certainly needs documenting.

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My Anima

I've started this blog because there are questions that need answers. I am asking the blogger public for their feedback. Some of the questions may have no answers and may lead to more questions, but I want to know what they are and if they are different than my own. Perhaps there will be many that I never thought about. I am a student (seriously) of spiritual exploration. I believe our world society is changing. It must change if the human animal is to survive. To be better, to be free from fear, to deepen, authentic connection is my goal.